It has stood on Charles Street for over 100 years - and now this old auction house is about to become Manchester's hottest new music venue.

Promoters Now Wave - Wes Jones and Jon Wickstead - have teamed up with Ruth Hemmingfield, formerly of Gorilla and Deaf Institute, to bring the Cape Dunn art auctioneers building back to life as a gig space.

Between them, the trio have staged some of Manchester's most memorable gigs over the last 10 years, including shows by The xx, alt-J and Grimes.

Now they are pooling their shared decade's worth of experience to open their first venue of their own.

The four-storey venue will include a ground floor bar and food offering, while a second bar will occupy the top floor - complete with a roof terrace with views over Oxford Street and the striking Victorian clock tower of the Principal Hotel.

The top floor space will be home to a bar and roof terrace (Image: Jody Hartley)

An intimate basement gig space will give breakthrough acts a platform to play their first shows, while a slightly larger first floor space will stage performances from bigger and better-known acts.

"Now Wave do shows from 60 capacity to 10,000," says Wes.

"But the shows we get most excited about are the first and second shows that bands play in the city."

Read More

Jon adds: "The stuff we book there will be a representation of us at that level of venue: lots of new acts, lots of emerging stuff.

"It's the perfect size of venue to put on stuff that we've discovered and we're really excited about."

The project is being carried out with painstaking attention to detail to ensure the best experience for gig goers, including lowering the first floor ceiling to accommodate a stage at the right height for fans to get a good view.

"We want people to think we've used the building to its best potential," says Wes.

"We get frustrated with venues' limitations sometimes, thinking if we had a venue we'd do certain things differently.

"We feel we've learned enough about what works and what doesn't. Now it's time to put it into practice.

"To be able to create our own space, our own way, it's a really amazing thing for us."

The Charles Street auction house where promoters Now Wave are opening a music venue (Image: Jody Hartley)

Now Wave will continue to promote bigger shows in other venues, and hope to give a platform to other young promoters to put on shows at theirs.

"We're really keen to get as much as possible happening in there and make it feel really inclusive," says Ruth.

"When we're working with other promoters there needs to be a level of quality and mutual respect between promoter and artist. We want people to be able to come and take a punt on a gig upstairs not knowing anything about the band and knowing it's going to be good."

Read More

The Charles Street auction house where promoters Now Wave are opening a music venue (Image: Jody Hartley)

Built in 1912, the three-storey arts and crafts-style building originally housed a printing press and has been empty since 2015.

Situated between Oxford Road and Princess Street, the building is in the heart of a quickly-developing area with the Circle Square neighbourhood taking shape on its doorstep and projects such as Hatch, a pop-up food, drink and retail space beneath the Mancunian Way, newly opened nearby.